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dude, it is sad. I'm not a transman, but I dated a guy for a bit who people would just straight up ask if he was trans, ALWAYS with a sort of disdainful tone, followed by a look at me which ranged from pity to anger because apparently being a dude dating a dude who you perceive as being trans is not ok. I just don't get it.

I hope I don't have tinnitus, but when there's no noise in the room I hear that really high pitched whine that a tube TV makes. It's pretty quiet but it's there, feels like it's inside my head :( And I've only really noticed it in the past few weeks. Though when there's even the slightest external noise I don't hear it.

You know what you do? Break down crying. Break down crying about how you're a woman inside and everyone thinks you're a man.

One of the issues trans people face is that it's not a visible minority, like say race. Someone can be trans and just look like some white, cishet man or whatever. They're only welcome if they look the part, like some caricature?

Safe spaces should be created by fostering a certain atmosphere- Kick out trouble makers, people who make others uncomfortable, establish a culture that lets your minority customers feel safe. But being exclusionary for acceptance is like fucking for virginity.

I contend that any kind of meaningful thinking is beyond pretty much all the denizens of reddit generally, and of /r/toronto[1] more specifically. This is a lot that is generally to anxious to go to a Jays game without asking for tips from each other to make it a more successful outing.

I think you're aiming a bit high if you expect that kind of critical thinking here.

Can you have a "whites only" or "blacks only" day?
Where does the division become "crossed the line" of socially acceptable and/or appropriate?

That's the first comment in the chain and that's really all that needs to be said.

What the bike shop is doing is essentially the same type of discrimination, and people in the Toronto area should be reporting them to their local city council member, etc...

Also, I live in a major US city and as far as I know that type of shit doesn't go on here and there's a huge gay/trans population. What is it about Canada that causes people to lose their damn minds? I feel like Canada and especially Toronto is ground zero for gender wars.

It appears to be a single day set aside to essentially give trans people and cis women a chance to pop in without fear of judgement. How they got the idea there aren't transphobic cis women is beyond me though.

It appears to be a single day set aside to essentially give trans people and cis women a chance to pop in without fear of judgement.

If your store/club/whatever is such that you have to create a special day where women and trans people aren't judged then you might want to look at what's happening on the other 6 days of the week and start fixing the problem that way.

Seriously. I'm a female cyclist, and I have never once felt any desire whatsoever for a women-only bike shop. In fact, I find the very idea that women would need a separate bike shop from men to be really condescending.

It's true that some bike shops can have a reputation for being snobby to new cyclists, women, larger people, or other random groups of people. But segregation isn't the solution; training staff to have better customer service skills is.

What she's saying in that post isn't about "customer service" (as it's not a store to begin with). It's about other cyclists using the space, being condescending and rude. And I mean, she's pretty clearly speaking from experience - obviously her experience is different from yours, but surely that doesn't make hers invalid?

And I mean, she's pretty clearly speaking from experience - obviously her experience is different from yours, but surely that doesn't make hers invalid?

I do think this is a bit much though. I mean come on, a "cis women /trans folks only" day in a bike shop? Where does it end? I'm sure you can meet jerks in your local bakery/walmart/movie theatre as well. Do all of them need to have "cis women /trans folks only" days too?

I mean I do understand if some people feel the need for this but it seems a bit like fighting the symptoms instead of the disease. If some people are dicks to women/trans people I don't think ensuring they don't interact will make things better in the long run.

While I definitely see what you're saying, I'm not sure that attempting to segregate groups that may experience discrimination in this particular environment (if indeed that's been a problem there) solves anything. If the problem is "some men think that women aren't good cyclists/good at fixing bikes", how will creating a situation in which women and men don't interact in that capacity solve that stereotype?

I know that, for me, the major reason I go to an all male gym is because I like to work out completely nude except for a pair of Nike cross trainers. Watching each muscle flex and pump as I lift, or seeing my penis flop hither and thither as I complete mile 4 on the treadmill, it's incredibly inspiring.

I feel like it's just me and the iron and like 5 or 6 other ripped dudes trying to get buff and tan and hairless. Why pursue perfection and get so close and then hide it? That makes no sense.

The Greeks worked out in the nude. In fact the word gymnos as in - gymnasium and gymnastics - actually means "naked". So it's not weird at all. It's not a gay thing, either. It's not sexual. Sure it gets weird when someone spots you benching or squatting but it's just two, totally ripped dudes enjoying each others' bodies and helping each other get a sick pump and look their best. Dick size is just another thing to mire, man. Like pecs or abs or glutes. It's not sexual at all.

Well you really only need to do one, but if you want to get those male kegel muscles super huge, I'd recommend starting off with negatives until you can make it to one. That's what I did and now I do weighted cock-ups 3x8.

Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress pics or vid clips. Show us what you got man. Wanna see how freakin' huge, solid, thick and tight you can get. Thanks for the motivation.

Most definitely- maybe we could meet up and spot each other? I'd ask my sister's boyfriend, but I saw him wearing a pink buttondown yesterday so I don't trust him to help me with my gainz without escalating things. I just need another man to help me get all rigid and thick and hard without feeling sexualized.

I squat barefoot. Idk I like the feel of things when I squat. My heel driving into the mat, the air from a ceiling fan gently cooling my skin, the feel of a bead of sweat gently running from my brow down the length of my body and over the small valleys of my pumped muscles until it drops to the floor, the feel of my spotter's hands on the skin of my hips, safe, secure, his breath hot on the back of my neck and smelling faintly of fruit punch c4 pre-workout.

A couple reasons. It keeps costs low ($10 bucks a month no sign-up fee) as there is no need for a second sauna, second locker room, etc. Also some guys just feel uncomfortable working out around women. I like it because there are a ton of squat racks and heavy weights and less of pilates and machines.

Every now and then I want to go to a female only gym. I feel like I can't stretch my hammies without a nearby guy of any age thinking I'm showing my ass for him. As if. I'm just trying to get fit, cut it out. But the majority of the time I'm too focused on my work out to care.

It's not the water in Toronto. I guess there's a perception among some cyclists (on the West Coast of the US at least) that women and transfolks might need a bit more support in learning about cycling and bicycle repair. There are women and trans only workshops and special hours at bicycle repair shops in Sacramento and Portland, OR. San Francisco's bike kitchen explicitly invites "all women, transfolks, genderqueer folk, femmes" to do repairs there. Portland even has a women only bike shop that caters specifically to their needs as customers. In other words, however poorly conceived Bike Pirates' policies may be, there seem to be other cyclist groups that perceive biking (and biking repair) culture as cis-male dominated to the extent that providing alternative programs and spaces for women and transfolk may be desirable to make more of them feel welcome and allow them to develop skills/expertise at their own pace.

What the bike shop is doing is essentially the same type of discrimination, and people in the Toronto area should be reporting them to their local city council member, etc...

There are places where sexual orientation and gender identity are not protected classes. If that's the case, serving only trans people would be entirely legal. I could see where someone might pull a stunt like this to generate those complaints only to highlight that this type of discrimination is still a problem.

In Montreal there's a fairly famous bike shop called Bikurious which is just about the gayest place on the planet-- featuring, among other things, "Montreal's premier lesbian barber" who will give you a damn fine gay haircut. However, everyone is welcome to come in and purchase... It's by queers and fundamentally for queers, but everyone else is welcome too.

What's interesting is that the shop cropped up because there is a culture of all-women's cycling: the Ovarian Psychos are the first that come to mind. Now, personally I'd never seen cycling as an especially gendered sport/activity-- everyone rides bikes, right?-- but this culture of women's cycling has apparently been around since the 90s. In its wake, the Bikurious people felt that a lesbian cycle shop specifically would add to the community at large. Which, again, seems fair. Bikurious attempted to add its demographic interests to the cycling community of Montreal in its own way. Because it is additive and not exclusive, no one can reasonably be offended.

Unfortunately I'm not sure this shop acted appropriately.

Obviously the thing that upsets people most is the idea of exclusivity-- nobody wants to draw parallels to a much darker era of segregation. Personally I think that they are going about it in the wrong way because they've extended it to their business and not to a specific event. At my university, there would frequently be discussion groups which only trans people would be allowed to attend... Essentially to avoid "lol but I'm just bein a devilz advocate!!!" conversations. There were also groups for PoC, for women, for men, for Jewish people, atheists, baptists, whatever, with varying degrees of inclusivity or exclusivity depending. These groups allowed people to connect with those who had similar issues/concerns/etc., without feeling that they had to filter through any other lens. For instance: I'm happy to discuss my own sexuality as a lesbian, but sometimes it's nice to not have to dodge questions about threesomes and if/when I intend to suck [your] dick, which are regrettably frequent in my experience. So it was exclusive, but only for the event and only for about an hour.

That's where the shop went wrong-- no one is going to get upset about a women's cycling event, a women's cycling race or trail ride or any other fun thing for a few hours. As soon as it becomes a day-long business affair people get upset.

Also, I live in a major US city and as far as I know that type of shit doesn't go on here and there's a huge gay/trans population.

I am in Philadelphia and from what I understand there is a shop with a similar set up (volunteer, non-profit, etc) that does(did?) trans and women only days. Not sure if they still do of if there was any push back because of it.

It's in west philly and I used to volunteer there. It stills goes on because it's popular & needed. there can be some shitty macho attitudes in bike shops and these days give people who might not otherwise be inclind a chance to learn how to fix their bike! men can come any other day of the week and at a different times during the same day so it's a non issue.

Why do people have this assumption that all men are cut from the same cloth. I would personally like to be able to do something without feeling judged. Why is it that my gender disqualifies me from having a judgment free day?

Wouldn't it be just as easy to kick people out for being dicks than to arbitrarily decide that all men, and only men, are the problem. Seems really discriminatory and unjustifiable. Just my personal opinion.

It seems like something like "newbie hours" or "no
Judgment hours" would be just as effective at achieving the stated goals, and wouldn't exclude based solely on gender.

There's a couple of bike co-ops here in L.A. that do the same thing. Bike co-ops are great. I have to say, though, that the one time I was out on a ride and got a flat far from home and managed to get to one where it happened to be on one of the nights that they turned me away for being a white male, I was pretty annoyed. I mean, I feel like I'm part of the cycling community; I commute by bike, I put in volunteer hours at a co-op (yet another one that doesn't do a night like this), yet they wouldn't let me take ten minutes to service my bike. Ended up having to take the bus home.

This thread was great (I was gonna post it here, ya beat me to it!), apparently the place isn't even that great to begin with (someone somewhere in the comments said that it didn't even have all of the tools you needed to do most basic repairs), and was actually condescending to female customers, as if they hadn't a clue how to work such a complicated piece of machinery as a fucking bike.

I don't live in Toronto, but I find that many bike mechanics tend to be condescending, no matter the age/gender/race/whatever of their customers. I'm not an expert, so I'm usually happy for the advice, but they frustrate my gearhead buddies who need a part, not a repair.

Bike Pirates isn't really a business as much a non-profit. And there very much not secretive about their stance on social justice. They've run events in the past that were ciswomen and trans folk only as well as events and ones that endorsed feminist media. Not that I have much of an opinion on this particular instance or them in general. Edit:words

To play devil's advocate here, this reminds me a lot of the question, "Why's it okay to have black pride, but not white pride?"

Similarly to black people, women share a common culture in that the vast majority of them have experienced systematic discrimination or harassment for their gender.

Unlike a black person or a woman, few white males experience systematic discrimination or harassment for their gender. Of course, this doesn't mean it can't happen- discrimination against male nurses, discrimination against whites in minority neighborhoods, etc. It just isn't so prevalent that it bonds almost all men together through common experience like it bonds almost all women.

All of that being said, that's why I have no problem with events for women, minorities, and other oppressed groups- it offers people of similar cultures to interact with each other comfortably.

An event, however, is different than a business. Businesses shouldn't do that- I'm pretty sure It'll get fined or some shit soon enough.

As has been said many times this isn't a business. It's a non profit (Or at least is run like one, I don't know if it's legally a non profit). Bike pirates is somewhat famous for being fairly social justicey, not unlike the bike scene itself.

Personally I don't have any problem with an organisation excluding anyone at all. Not legally at least. However I think this is still a ridiculous thing. I'm sure there are women and trans people who are uncomfortable interacting with cis men. But this isn't naked aerobics or something. This just perpetuates the idea that people need to be protected from the presense of, what, just non trans men? If this was truely about creating a safe space emotionally I wonder why they assume no women could ever be transphobic?